iCopyright Carol Cooper, Compasswebworks
What Makes Teams Tick?
This month's key leadership skill is "Knowledge". It's a pretty big topic - related to "information" as well as "wisdom" on the other end of the spectrum. Teams who understand the importance of how information is shared, knowledge is captured and created and how wisdom plays into decision making, are well on their way to an exemplary existance.
Let me quote directly from Peter Senge about how teams tick.
Senge is the wise guy behind "learning organizations"
and "systems thinking".
Full article and source here: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/senge.htm
"When you ask people about what it is like being part of a great team, what is most striking is the meaningfulness of the experience.
People talk about being part of something larger than themselves, of being connected, of being generative.
It become quite clear that, for many, their experiences as part of truly great teams stand out as singular periods of life lived to the fullest.
Some spend the rest of their lives looking for ways to recapture that spirit. (Senge 1990: 13)
For Peter Senge, real learning gets to the heart of what it is to be human. We become able to re-create ourselves.
This applies to both individuals and organizations.
Thus, for a ‘learning organization it is not enough to survive. ‘
”Survival learning” or what is more often termed “adaptive learning” is important – indeed it is necessary.
But for a learning organization, “adaptive learning” must be joined by “generative learning”, learning that enhances our capacity to create’ (Senge 1990:14).
So, what does this mean for our CAP teams?
With the assessments of both your team functions and roles, and the "Community Asset Maps", you are being introduced to "systems thinking". This concept, in short, helps you to understand how
a variety of parts - and their inter-relationships - contribute to the whole.
Your CAP team is not just a project.
It is a dynamic, living, breathing "organization"
with causes and effects inthe proecess of snowballing.
This momentum can be positive or negative:
each of you are either contributing to its strength,
or increasing its challenges.
There is no "status quo".
Defining your CAP project as a "to do" assignment, is much different than understanding how your knowledge and wisdom are contributing to the host organization's "big picture" future.
Back to Peter Senge:
Peter Senge advocates the use of ‘systems maps’
– diagrams that show the key elements of systems and how they connect. However, people often have a problem ‘seeing’ systems,
and it takes work to acquire the basic building blocks of systems theory, and to apply them to your organization.
On the other hand, failure to understand system dynamics can lead us into ‘cycles of blaming and self-defense: the enemy is always out there, and problems are always caused by someone else’ (Bolam and Deal 1997: 27; see, also, Senge 1990: 231).
Using knowledge in a learning organization means that the team keeps an eye out for:
- Practices: what you do.
- Principles: guiding ideas and insights.
- Essences: the state of being at high levels of mastery in the discipline
You & Your Leadership Learning in the Team: Personal Mastery
‘Organizations learn only through individuals who learn.
Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs'.
Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively’ . It goes beyond competence and skills, although it involves them. It goes beyond spiritual opening, although it involves spiritual growth.
Mastery is seen as a special kind of proficiency.
It is not about dominance, but rather about calling.
Vision is vocation rather than simply just a good idea.
People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode.
They never ‘arrive’.
Personal mastery is not something you possess.
It is a process.
It is a lifelong discipline.
People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas.
And they are deeply self-confident.
Paradoxical?
Only for those who do not see the ‘journey is the reward’.
(Senge 1990: 142)
Team learning
Such learning is viewed as ‘the process of aligning and developing the capacities of a team to create the results its members truly desire’'.
It builds on personal mastery and shared vision – but these are not enough. People need to be able to act together.
When teams learn together, Peter Senge suggests,
not only can there be good results for the organization,
members will grow more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.
The discipline of team learning starts with ‘dialogue’, the capacity of members of a team
to suspend assumptions and enter into
a genuine ‘thinking together’.
To the Greeks dia-logos meant
a free-flowing of meaning through a group, allowing the group to discover insights not attainable individually….
[It] also involves learning how to recognize the patterns of interaction in teams that undermine learning.
And so... we will continue to explore leadership "information"..."knowledge"...and "wisdom" as a system
through your CAP Team experience.
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